This morning I was
supposed to preach a stewardship sermon as part of our A Home for All campaign. Then Donald
Trump won the election, shocking the nation and the world. Clinton supporters were
devastated; but even President-Elect Trump and many of his supporters were
surprised by the results.

On Thursday Lloyd
Meyer, a member of St. Andrew who has been teaching in China, shared with me an
email message from his brother Doug’s rabbi at Temple Micah in Washington, D.C.
Rabbi Zemel’s message was entitled: “After the Election: Jewish Values.” He
began: “Dear Friends, Last night, I slept
the sleep of the disturbed with a pit in my stomach. I woke up in shock and to a
new reality. We all now feel the pain of a divided country and we wonder how “a
house divided against itself” can stand. Half our nation celebrates. Half of us mourn. For half of us there is
real pain, despair, fear, and foreboding about what the outcome of this election
means for the country we share.” Rabbi Zemel added: “We read in our prayerbook that`Standing on the parted shores of history we
still believe . . . that there is a . . . promised land.’ The only way to get to
that `better place’ is by `marching together.’ Today and tomorrow are days to
help each other. Hug a friend. Phone your family. Tell someone that you love
them. Sit and hold the hand of the person who is overwhelmed.” I know that
some of the very things Rabbi Zemel encourages us to do have been going on among
the people of St. Andrew.

President-Elect
Trump campaigned on a promise of change. Certainly there will be significant
changes under a Trump administration. But some things have not changed. With
apologies to David Letterman, I have compiled a top ten list of things that have
not changed since Tuesday’s election.

Number 10: The
Cubs are still the 2016 World Series winners.

Number 9: My new
book Coming Home to Earth is no more
likely to become a best seller.

Number 8: St.
Andrew still owes nearly $2.1 million on our mortgage.

Number 7:
Oregon is one of the most beautiful states in
the Union.

Number 6: The
First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right to peaceful
assembly.

Number 5: Climate
change remains a pressing issue.

Number 4: We have
much work to do on race relations in our country.

Number 3: Every
person is created in the image of God.

Number 2: All have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Number 1: God
remains the God of the universe.

Even for those
most devastated by the election, it may be of some consolation that Donald Trump
was elected President of the United States, not God of the
universe.

Earlier this fall
during the Sunday morning forum on “Truth-Telling in Political Campaigns,” I
mentioned a couple of times that people of faith need to consider how we will
respond if Donald Trump is elected President. The majority of the country,
including many Trump supporters, were assuming Hillary Clinton would win. We
anticipated she would not dramatically change many policies of the Obama
administration. But Donald Trump was promising significant change. How would we
respond if a policy or program he proposed went against our core convictions?
That is no longer a hypothetical question.

I began serving as
Pastor at St. PaulLutheranChurch in Franklin Grove, Illinois, near
the end of President Reagan’s final term. President Reagan’s home town of
Dixon, Illinois, was ten miles down the road. People
in Dixon had
fond memories of “Dutch” serving as a lifeguard at the city pool. Art and Alice
Schafer, the patriarch and matriarch of our congregation, had a Ronald Reagan
wall in their home. It featured a picture of them with Ronald and Nancy when he
was serving as governor of California.

The Iran Contra
scandal was still fresh in people’s minds when I arrived in Franklin Grove. In
one adult forum I gave a strong critique of our government’s role in this
scandal. Alice
was troubled by this scandal, and she supported me addressing it. What she would
not have supported was any personal verbal attack on President
Reagan.

Personal verbal
attacks on our leaders have become a staple of our political culture. Such
attacks seldom contribute in a constructive way to addressing the real issues we
face.

My sense is that
people of faith are most effective when we are true to our vision and our core
values in speaking and acting in the public sphere. In Jeremiah 29:11 the Lord
assures the people of God in exile: “For
surely I know the plans that I have for you . . . plans for your welfare and not
for harm, to give you a future with hope.” “Welfare” is the translation of
the Hebrew word shalom. The more
common translation of shalom is
“peace.” God’s intention for the exiles is to give them a future with hope. Shalom—their well-being—defines that
hope. Shalom is God’s vision of and
commitment to the well-being of Earth and all of its inhabitants. Created in the
image of God, we are invited to share in the fulfillment of this vision and
commitment. Shalom means “peace,” but
not simply as an absence of war and violent conflict. Shalom refers to well-being of the whole
person— mind, body, heart, and soul. It is well-being in all our relationships:
with God, with other humans, and with Earth and all its creatures.[1]

The people of
Israel gathered often in the
Temple in Jerusalem to pray for the shalom of Israel and Jerusalem. But exiled in Babylon, they lamented the destruction of Jerusalem, asking the
question: “How can we singthe Lord’s song in a foreign land?”
Jeremiah’s prophecy made clear that they could be in Babylon for a long time.
There was no guarantee that any current exiles would ever return home. In
Jeremiah 29:7 the Lord urged them: “Seek
the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord
on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” They were to
sing the Lord’s song of shalom now,
while exiled in a foreign land, and not wait for the future God had promised to
give them.

In Rabbi Zemel’s
message to his congregation he stressed that “now more than ever we value and appreciate
what we love at Temple Micah, our truest values of Torah that celebrate
diversity; respect difference; support community; welcome the stranger; support
the poor and the weak; work for justice for the oppressed; and recognize the
image of God in people of every race, religion, and ethnic
background.”

Our vision for
ministry is “the people of St. Andrew
living out our core care values”— God care, Earth care, community care,
neighbor care, and self-care. That was our vision before the presidential
election. That remains our vision after the election. No matter who won this
election, our call to be true to our vision and core values was not going to
change.

In Hillary
Clinton’s gracious concession speech what she addressed to her young campaign
workers was inspiring: “You will have
successes and setbacks, too. This loss hurts but never stop believing that
fighting for what’s right is worth it.” We too should never stop believing
that striving to live out our core values is worth it. When one of those core
values is clearly challenged, we need to speak and act in the public sphere
without fear.

I anticipate, for
example, that President-Elect Trump will seek to withdraw our nation from the
Paris Climate Agreement that just went into force on November 4. On the basis of
our Earth care core value we have a responsibility to challenge that withdrawal.
We may also need to resist any unjust treatment of our refugee family the
Alajrabs and other refugee families. We need to resist on the basis of our core
values without resorting to personal attacks.

As I mentioned at
the beginning, this was supposed to be a stewardship sermon. Debt reduction is
not as exciting a campaign as the campaign nine years ago raising funds to build
the new facility we now enjoy. But perhaps something more is going on in this
campaign than it at first appears. Providing a solid financial foundation now
increases the likelihood that the people of St. Andrew will be living out our
core care values well into the future. Generously giving to the A Home for All campaign can be viewed an
expression of confidence in the future God intends for St.
Andrew.

So much of this
presidential campaign focused on fear, especially fear of the future. In the
aftermath fear of the future remains on many people’s hearts and minds. There
are legitimate concerns and uncertainties about where we are heading as a
nation. But God wants us to live by faith, not fear.

My 18 year old
daughter Mary does not often post on Facebook, and I do not normally go on
Facebook. But when I was almost done writing this sermon, my wife Donna showed
me an entry Mary posted Wednesday night in response to the presidential
election, the first she has ever voted in. Perhaps some of you have already seen
it. Her post made me grateful for this church community that has nurtured her
faith since she was a seven year old girl. Let me read the last part of her post
for you: “You don’t know what the future
may hold, but you can start living in the now and try to make a difference. Make
a difference by spreading love and peace, not anger and hate. Make a difference
by saying Hi to someone you usually wouldn’t. After all, we ALL have something
in common and that is we are all human, we breath the same air, we see the same
sun rise and the same sun go down.” She concludes with the hashtag:
#passthepeace.

Be assured this
presidential election did not change what we all have in common. Be assured this
presidential election will not change God’s plan to give us a future with
hope.